The Book of the Unnamed Midwife Read Free Page A

without streetcars or hordes of people, without dogs barking or music pouring out of windows and the small radios carried by the homeless.
    She smelled the sea and the sweet odor of rot from both food and dead bodies all around. The corners and alleys smelled like piss, maybe they always would. Block after block went by and she hesitated, thinking of traffic and signals and safety. She had to force herself to stop worrying about being hit by a car and start thinking what she should do if she saw another person. This was the first walk she had ever taken in this neighborhood that had not brought with it the smell of a dozen people smoking weed, the haze drifting from windows and bold passerby. Her senses were ringing the bell; the city was dead.
    A different smell was beckoning to her. As she came to a corner, she could hear a little noise and she hid in the eave of a theatre, under the marquis, listening. Somewhere on the other side of the intersection, someone was cooking. And singing.
    She stayed there as the smell grew stronger. She could smell garlic and mushrooms, she was sure. She heard the singing only in snatches, but the voice sounded high. She thought she should turn around and go the other way, and she fought with herself on that for a long time. In the end, hunger and simple curiosity won out. She came out cautiously and walked into the intersection. With a glance in all directions, she crossed diagonally away from a liquor store that stank like someone had smashed every bottle inside. The wind shifted and the aroma came again. Garlic and corn and cheese. Her stomach growled.
    She came to the busted-out windows of an old Mexican restaurant with faded signs. The door stood open. She didn’t see anyone. She walked through, craning her neck toward the sound. The song was clearer now; it was old with lyrics in Spanish. The person singing was doing a pretty good impression of the dead singer. She came through a short door into the kitchen.
    A tall dark-skinned man stood at a gas grill, cooking an assortment of pupusas and sweating. He turned toward her with a smile, then goggled at her with his mouth open.
    “Who the hell are you?” His accent made the last word joo.
    “I’m… I’m… that smells amazing. I didn’t mean to bust in on you. Are you…?” She stood half in the doorway, deciding whether to run. She didn’t know what she should ask. Are you dangerous? Are you gonna eat that? Terror and curiosity fought hunger and disorientation. She stood, unable to obey any of them.
    He put the spatula down slowly. “Look, I just wanted to make some food. I don’t want any trouble. I’m waiting for my friend, Chicken. If this is your place, I’m sorry.”
    “No, no it’s not my place. I’m from across town. I haven’t seen anybody else on the street.”
    “You and me both, girl. Me and Chicken thought we were the last two motherfuckers on earth.”
    She watched him closely. She knew he was gay. It was in everything, the way he stood in a long curve with his hips forward at the stove, the way he held his mouth when he called her ‘girl.’ It was in his delicate but deft hand as he flipped the pupusas. It was in the way he didn’t look her up and down or linger anywhere but her face. She knew and she knew him immediately. It was a snap judgment to make, but she had lived and worked with gay men in San Francisco her whole life. Most of her best friends had been gay men, especially since after twenty-five most of her female friends had disappeared down the rabbit hole of marriage and come out mothers on the other side. She relaxed a little and came all the way through the door.
    “You don’t look like a looter,” he told her, turning his attention back to the food.
    “I’m not. I was sick with whatever the fuck everyone had and woke up at UCSF. Where did everybody go?”
    “You were at UCSF, you tell me. The news said everyone was dying, especially the ladies. Some pundit asshole was saying it was an